On Wednesday, Virginia-based Smithfield Foods (SFD, Fortune 500), the world's largest processor of pork, announced that it was being bought by Chinese meat producer Shuanghui International for nearly $5 billion. It is the biggest announced acquisition of a U.S. company by a Chinese buyer.

China is already the world's largest producer and consumer of pork. In China, per-capita pork consumption last year was 86 pounds, up from 70 pounds in 2002, said Mark Schultz, chief analyst with Minneapolis-based Northstar Commodity Investment.

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